A FRIEND is about to have her first baby. She's just been shown a pair of forceps at an ante-natal class and is beginning to suspect it's not all New Age bliss in the birthing room.

A FRIEND is about to have her first baby. She's just been shown a pair of forceps at an ante-natal class and is beginning to suspect it's not all New Age bliss in the birthing room.

She's right. But how do I tell her? Do I play it straight and warn she'll probably be screaming for any drugs going by the late stages or do I give her a reassuring hug and lie through my teeth?

There's a conspiracy about childbirth that insists all new mothers-to-be are told it's not that bad.

Let's be honest. It is that bad. It might not always be. Sometimes it's just truly grim, but it's unlikely that aromatherapy will take the edge off the pain and massage loses its appeal when your body's being pummelled from the inside.

In a society where we rarely see blood, death or disease close up, the extreme experience of birth is something we are not prepared for.

That's probably why scores of women have been demanding caesarean sections. Many claim it's because they want to know the exact time, date and place of arrival but somehow these sound hollow reasons. Hi-tech scans make it unusual for dates to be more than two weeks out.

By that time most pregnant women will probably be on maternity leave and so far gone that they can hardly hike their bodies to the bus stop, let alone countenance anything that might make going into labour a dreadfully inconvenient surprise. Few women will be cross-channel swimming at 38 weeks. It is more likely they will be within at least a 10-mile radius of home.

So I suspect that most who request caesareans do so because they are scared of giving birth. As the process can descend into medieval nightmare this is perfectly reasonable. Why, if modern medicine can provide us with the skill and drugs to relieve pain and fear, should anyone be denied it?

It is therefore a shame that the Government's health advisers have issued new guidelines telling doctors they should refuse women caesarean sections unless it is justified on medical grounds. At the moment 7% of all caesareans are done on demand rather than medical grounds.

Sure, there are risks with the procedure, but there are also risks with natural childbirth.

I suspect it has more to do with an army of the politically correct who feel birth isn't birth unless you have screamed and the fact that caesarean sections cost the NHS a lot more - #3,200 compared with #1,700.

Rates of caesarean sections have quadrupled in the last 30 years and nearly one in every four babies in Britain is born this way. So what's the problem?

Giving birth is safer now than it ever was, so something must be right.

There seems to be an unwritten code that first demands women are kept in the dark about how nasty labour can be and then makes them feel failures if they cannot do itnaturally and enjoy it too.

With my first pregnancy I read a book telling me to welcome contractions in.

Three babies later I know it would have helped more to be told the pain is acute but lasts only a few minutes at a time. More honesty might reduce the number of emergency caesarean sections. The unexpected causes panic. And where the mind panics the body is sure to follow.